Xu Yichuan and the other two didn’t believe a single word of Jiang Yan’s answer—not a letter, not even a punctuation mark.
But, helpless as they were, Jiang Yan kept his mouth sealed tight. No matter how they tried to lure him, he didn’t say a word more. They didn’t dare try to threaten him, either.
The conversation finally ended when Lin Tiao pushed the door open and walked in.
As soon as she stepped into the private room, Xu Yichuan, Hu Hanghang, and the third friend reacted as if someone had flipped a switch. They all stood up in unison, clutching their chairs, unsure what to do.
The three of them circled the table once.
At last, Jiang Yan lifted his foot and gave Hu Hanghang’s chubby rear a kick, placing his phone on the table. “It’s just a meal—are you three trying to hold some sort of ritual?”
Xu Yichuan, the quickest on his feet, was the first to respond. He immediately set his chair down and sat up straight, hands together in a prayer pose as he murmured, “Brothers sorry about this. Bro here has no other choice for the sake of survival. When you’re reincarnated, come back as a human, yeah?”
Lin Tiao, watching the scene, was speechless: “…”
Jiang Yan chuckled in exasperation, grabbing a pair of unused chopsticks from the table and tossing them at Xu Yichuan. “For f— stop spouting nonsense all the time—you’re scaring my tablemate.”
Xu Yichuan reacted with lightning speed, catching the chopsticks in one elegant move, placing them back on the table. Then he turned to Lin Tiao and smiled. “Sister Tiao, come sit down.”
“…” Another new nickname?
When the server brought over the crucian carp tofu soup that Song Yuan had ordered midway through the meal, Xu Yichuan clasped his hands together again, reciting the same incantation. This time, Jiang Yan forcibly dragged him out of the room.
Overall, Lin Tiao found the meal relatively peaceful.
But she noticed that every time she joined them for a meal off-campus, it always took up the entire lunch break—sometimes even stretching until the bell for the first afternoon class had already rung by the time they arrived back at school.
Like now. The five of them had just wobbled out of Chen’s Diner when, from across the street, they heard a booming voice echoing from the School’s gate: “Is the cafeteria food not good enough? Or are the lunch ladies not serving you enough food? Why are you all heading out every day at noon?”
“…”
Why did that sound so strange?
At the main gate, a line of students who for whatever reason were late, stood silently in a row.
Jiang Yan hesitated, weighing his options between “walking over, getting scolded, and writing a self-critique” and “climbing over the wall, possibly getting caught, getting scolded, and still writing a critique.” He chose the latter.
He patted Lin Tiao’s head. “Come on, let’s climb the wall.”
“?”
Climb the wall?
Lin Tiao was still stunned when she was already being steered toward the side path.
The school had three entrances: north, south, and west. The main gate faced north, directly opposite a lively snack street.
The south entrance served mainly as a staff vehicle lane, where traffic was busiest after school. Because of this, the school designated it as vehicle-only, with students required to exit through the main gate.
As for the west entrance, it had originally been the main gate until city development brought constant construction noise and dust to the area. Concerned for student safety, the school eventually moved the gate.
Over time, the west gate was sealed off, replaced with a brick wall.
Now, standing at the base of the wall, Lin Tiao looked up at the barrier, which was about one and a half times her height. The sunlight above was dazzling and blinding.
After a moment, she turned her gaze away.
This wasn’t Lin Tiao’s first time climbing over a wall. Back in middle school, she’d gone through a rebellious phase, spending her days thinking of ways to climb out and go catch stuffed toys from claw machines.
That’s how she met Meng Xin, who was also in her rebellious phase. The girl had been kicked out of class for sleeping and decided to skip entirely, playing games outside until she came back.
The two ran into each other on top of the wall, exchanged a few casual words, and surprisingly hit it off.
For the next half-semester, they climbed the wall together every day. When Meng Xin went to the internet cafe to play games, Lin Tiao would sit next to her watching TV.
When she went to the arcade to catch toys, Meng Xin would play arcade games with the kids nearby.
Life was lively and fun—until they got caught by the principal...
Thinking about the punishment she suffered back then made Lin Tiao shiver. She didn’t want to think about it any longer.
While she was lost in thought, Xu Yichuan and the other two had already climbed over. From the other side of the wall, they whispered so as not to be heard, “No one’s around, hurry up. We’ll head back to the classroom first and cover for you two.”
With that, footsteps gradually faded away until they couldn’t be heard.
Lin Tiao looked at Jiang Yan, who was standing next to her. “Why don’t you go first? I can’t get over with this arm.”
“Do I look that unloyal?” Jiang Yan scoffed lightly. “As if you’d be able to climb over even without the cast.”
“…” Lin Tiao had no retort.
Jiang Yan looked up at the height of the wall, then glanced at Lin Tiao. Without hesitation, he took off his school jacket and threw it over the top of the wall, where it hung just right.
Underneath, he wore only a plain white T-shirt, clean with no designs.
Then, Lin Tiao watched him walk to the base of the wall, where he crouched down slightly, his head lowered, exposing the curve of his neck and a protruding vertebra. His voice, laced with the breeze, said, “Come here.”
“Huh?” Lin Tiao froze, not moving.
In the quiet afternoon light at the bleached wall corner, the boy’s smile held a touch of calm warmth. “Step on my shoulder to climb up. Or do you actually want to go back and write a self-critique?”
Remembering the 3,000-word critique she hadn’t finished, any hesitation vanished. She walked over quickly, but, seeing his clean T-shirt, found herself reluctant to step on him.
“Maybe I should put something under my shoes?” Lin Tiao didn’t understand why he’d taken off his jacket in the first place.
It was such a clean T-shirt—who knew how dirty it’d get if she stepped on it?
Jiang Yan didn’t move from his crouch, still watching an ant crawling along the ground. He chuckled softly. “Didn’t peg you for the picky type. Putting down a layer just to step on a shoulder—do you lay down a red carpet when you walk?”
“…”
Ugh.
Telling herself it wasn’t her shirt anyway, Lin Tiao braced one hand against the wall and stepped onto Jiang Yan’s shoulder.
“Hold onto the wall,” Jiang Yan instructed, placing his hand over her ankle—through the fabric of his pants.
She looked thin, and, as expected, she was actually quite light. When he wrapped his hand around her ankle, his thumb and middle finger even touched.
Considering how much she usually ate, he wondered where it all went. He found himself thinking of a dozen things.
Until Lin Tiao’s voice came from above, “I can reach it now.”
“Oh.” Jiang Yan, snapping out of his thoughts, gripped her ankle a bit more tightly and stopped thinking altogether.
When she finally managed to sit on top of the wall, she realized why Jiang Yan had tossed his jacket there—it was to give her something soft to sit on.
The wall was about two meters high. As she looked back, she saw Jiang Yan take a step back, do a small sprint, and with one smooth motion, jump to the top by using the scattered stones on the ground.
Sitting on the wall, she clapped playfully. “Impressive.”
Jiang Yan smiled briefly, not lingering on top. He hopped down lightly, landing below, then looked up at her. “Can you get down?”
“Of course I can.” Lin Tiao glanced down. The ground below had clearly been stepped on many times before, wild grasses trampled into soft, exposed earth.
She looked down carefully, moving forward inch by inch.
Watching her inching along, Jiang Yan sighed, stepped forward, and extended his arms. “Forget it, I’ll just catch you—”
Before he could finish, a shadow fell from above.
Right into his open arms.
Lin Tiao hadn’t expected him to step forward, and as she leapt down, she landed right in his embrace, her cheek brushing against the thin fabric of his shirt.
At this close range, she caught a faint scent—a mix of orange blossom with a hint of cedarwood, fresh and clean.
Lin Tiao had thought he’d let go immediately, so she quickly steadied herself and turned to speak. “If I didn’t have the cast, I really could have climbed—”
But the word “over” caught in her mouth, cut off by the brief, soft brush of his lips on hers.